Albína Hulda Pálsdóttir

Background

I am a zooarchaeologist from Iceland and joined CEES as a PhD student in December 2016. My advisers are Dr Sanne Boessenkool & Dr Nils Chr. Stenseth, CEES, University of Oslo, Dr Jón Hallsteinn Hallsson, Agricultural University of Iceland and Dr Juha Kantanen, Natural Resources Institute Finland. The project I am working on is “The Sheep and Horses of the Vikings: Archaeogenomics of Domesticates in the North Atlantic” and it is very interdisciplinary in nature and will use both traditional zooarchaeology and ancient DNA analysis. I am interested in understanding the origin of the horse- and sheep breeds of the North Atlantic as well as the impact of climate and cultural adaptation on their genetic makeup. For the project I will be selecting Viking Age sheep and horse bones from Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Norway, the British Isles and more.

I have a husband and young daughter in Iceland so I will be based at the Agricultural University in Reykjavík during my PhD. I will be staying at CEES from January 2017 training in lab work and I will be at CEES regularly over the next years for lab work, data analysis and courses.

I completed my MA in zooarchaeology at Hunter College, The City University of New York in 2008 and before that a BA in Archaeology from the University of Iceland in 2005.

Publications

The voyages of the Vikings, starting in the late 8th century, did not only spread Viking culture and language throughout the North Atlantic but also moved animals of several domestic species - sheep, cattle, horse, goats, dogs, pigs, and chicken – around the whole of Northern Europe. In some cases, it is believed that modern breeds are direct descendants of animals brought by Vikings while in other cases it is believed that those breeds have been mixed and/or replaced by others. Although we do have a good understanding of where the Vikings travelled and settled, exactly how the Viking diaspora shaped the genetic composition and diversity in the North Atlantic domestic animals has not been fully explained. Although much has been written about individual domestic breeds a comprehensive overview is missing; here we aim to present an overview of native breeds in the region, what is known about their origin and how plausible it is that they remain relics of Viking migration rather than more modern immigrants.

Palsdottir, Albina Hulda (2017). Sample now or save for later? Destructive analysis of domesticate bones from archaeofaunal collections.
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Destructive sampling of animal bones from archaeological excavations is becoming more common. The refinement of ancient DNA technology, the use of next-generation sequencing, and the rapidly lowering cost of whole genome sequencing has led to a rapid growth in the field of ancient DNA analysis. This has again led to increased interest in destructive sampling of animal bones from archaeological excavations. Recent advances have shown that the petrous bone of the skull best preserves DNA in ancient samples which will lead to increased sampling pressure for that element. The ethical implications of destructive sampling for aDNA are not the same for every species due factors like size differences between species and large variations in rarity. Discussions of the ethical implications of destructive sampling have been largely absent in the zooarchaeological literature. Due to the increase in destructive sampling zooarchaeologists, as specialists in ancient animal bones, need to seriously consider these issues both within their discipline as well as with the specialists outside the field that are driving most of these studies.

Zooarchaeologists Albina Hulda Palsdottir is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oslo. Her research focuses on the origins of the horses and sheep that were brought to Iceland in the 9th century. The project is called, “The Sheep and Horses of the Vikings: Archaeogenomics of Domesticates in the North Atlantic.” Anyone who has an interest in ancient DNA should have a listen to this podcast!

Palsdottir, Albina Hulda (2016). Livestock movements in the North Atlantic.
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Livestock movements in the North Atlantic The settlers of the Faroe Islands and Iceland brought with them domestic livestock animals, cattle, horses, sheep, goats, pigs and dogs. Little is known about the origin of these animals and how the breeds formed and adapted to the climate of the North Atlantic Islands. My research is interdisciplinary and uses traditional zooarchaeological methods and ancient DNA to study livestock origins and movement in the North Atlantic. I will also be exploring the importance of local collaboration in international research projects and the dissemination of results both to the local population and the local academic community.

Palsdottir, Albina Hulda (2016). Livestock movements in the North Atlantic.

Palsdottir, Albina Hulda (2016). The Sheep and Horses of the Vikings: Archaeogenomics of Domesticates in the North Atlantic..
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The Sheep and Horses of the Vikings: Archaeogenomics of Domesticates in the North Atlantic Albína Hulda Pálsdóttir Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Norway and Faculty of Land and Animal Resources, Agricultural University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland albinap@gmail.com Viking settlers introduced a range of domestic animals to Iceland, Faroe Islands and Greenland in the 9th and 10th centuries. Many of these animals have been an important part of agriculture in this region since settlement. The primary aims of my project are to determine the origin of sheep and horses in the North Atlantic, and to understand the human selection of traits relating to the products from sheep and the religious and ritual importance of horses in the Viking Age. This project will deepen the understanding of how the rapid settlement of the North Atlantic shaped the population structure and genetic diversity of sheep and horses in the region and how they have changed in the thousand years since settlement. Furthermore, understanding the adaptation and development of modern livestock breeds is imperative to the successful management of genetic resources, since the crossing of traditional breeds with modern, high-producing commercial breeds, can lead an irreversible loss of valuable adaptive traits. Sheep are ideally suited to the landscapes and climate of the islands of the North Atlantic and mostly served a utilitarian purpose in Viking society, providing food and wool for clothing. They quickly became the most economically important domestic animal in the North Atlantic but little is known about the genomic composition of Viking Age sheep or their contributions to modern breeds. To date, ancient DNA analyses of sheep are limited and most ongoing work focuses on older time periods (e.g. the Neolithic and Bronze ages). The horse had a very different role in society since it was of central cultural and ritual importance during the Viking Age in additions to its use in transportation, agriculture and warfare. We will obtain and analyze archaeological bone material from around the North Atlantic and Scandinavia and compare these with modern breeds in the region. The project will combine zooarchaeological analyses with genomics, applying the latest advances in high throughput sequencing and ancient DNA analysis. Using this multidisciplinary approach will allow us to assemble a unique dataset in which we observe broad biogeographic patterns, functional traits as well as societal aspects such as herding techniques.